An intelligent target detection method of UAV swarms based on improved KM algorithm

Complete and efficient detection of unknown targets is the most popular application of UAV swarms. Under most situations, targets have directional characteristics so that they can only be successfully detected within specific angles. In such cases, how to coordinate UAVs and allocate optimal paths for them to efficiently detect all the targets is the primary issue to be solved. In this paper, an intelligent target detection method is proposed for UAV swarms to achieve real-time detection requirements. First, a target-feature-information-based disintegration method is built up to divide the search space into a set of cubes. Theoretically, when the cubes are traversed, all the targets can be detected. Then, a Kuhn-Munkres (KM)-algorithm-based path planning method is proposed for UAVs to traverse the cubes. Finally, to further improve search efficiency, a 3D real-time probability map is established over the search space which estimates the possibility of detecting new targets at each point. This map is adopted to modify the weights in KM algorithm, thereby optimizing the UAVs’ paths during the search process. Simulation results show that with the proposed method, all targets, with detection angle limitations, can be found by UAVs. Moreover, by implementing the 3D probability map, the search efficiency is improved by 23.4%–78.1%.